Links to Consider, 3/29

Niccolo Soldo on Canada; Moses Sternstein describes the economy; Jonathan Haidt is everywhere; Erik Hoel on the essence of the online age; Brian Doherty on Jennifer Burns' biography of Milton Friedman

Niccolo Soldo writes,

An economy based around resource-extraction and burdened down by high taxation and significant barriers to entry, productivity has trended downwards since the 1980s. Even though Canada has everything that a person or family could want in terms of purchasing, it is not an attractive place for capital markets when compared to the USA, China, or even Germany. This has led to a stagnation, one that has seen Canadians become poorer when compared to their immediate neighbour to the south.

Soldo makes it sound as if Canada’s deep state is worried that a stagnant economy could cause unrest, and to prevent this a strong censorship regime is required. If they would read Martin Gurri’s Revolt of the Public, they would see that attempted censorship is precisely the wrong response.

Moses Sternstein writes,

The National Nursing home method works like this: Uncle Sam borrows trillions of dollars from our grandchildren to pay millions of newly minted quasi-americans to provide healthcare to a steadily growing class of retirees. Voila. It’s Healthcare Domestic Product!

Interest rates are high, but everybody with long-term assets avoids taking losses by not selling: home owners with houses that potential buyers cannot afford; banks with long-term securities that nobody else wants; and VCs/private equity with investments in firms that are not doing well enough to justify their valuations.

The implication of Sternstein’s description is that a lot of economic activity is unsustainable. I wonder if the “winner” of the November election is just going to wind up presiding over the chickens coming home to roost.

Jonathan Haidt’s latest book came out, and you can’t miss it. Haidt and Zack Rausch write,

Today is also the launch day of a movement in the U.S., the UK, and other nations to Free the Anxious Generation by rolling back the phone-based childhood, restoring the play-based childhood, and reclaiming life in the real world.

David Epstein talks with Haidt.

NYU social psychologist Jonathan Haidt argues that the transition from a play-based childhood to a phone-based childhood has been an epochal disaster for the cognitive and social development of young people. 

And on Bari Weiss’ channel, Haidt writes,

What the smartphone user gives up is time. A huge amount of it.

Around 40 hours a week for preteens like your daughter. For teens aged 13 to 18, it’s closer to 50 hours per week. Those numbers—six to eight hours per day—are what teens spend on all screen-based leisure activities.

I look forward to reading the book, and also to reading any serious critical reviews.

The most interesting commentary I have read so far, which uses Haidt more as a jumping-off point than a central focus, comes from Clinton Ignatov. If Ignatov is correct, then the smart phone is not uniquely transformative. The entire computer/communications revolution is geared toward taking humans into an internal world, away from the ordinary external world.

Erik Hoel writes,

At the beginning of the 21st century there was a new thesis, one created by technological developments that brought the majority of the population online. This changed the consciousness of all of us permanently. That thesis was the mob.

Then, currently developing in reaction, there is the antithesis: the sovereign individual. The ones who stand above the mob.

The end of the 21st century, if not in year then in spirit, will occur when these forces are reconciled. When a synthesis is found that establishes liveable peace between individuals and the mob.

…If we were to compare the psychological topography of two citizens, one living in the 1990s, and one living in the 2020s, the most significant difference is that only one lives with the oppressive knowledge that they are watched by a panopticon.

David Brin (The Transparent Society) would say that we need a new ethic of politeness. Even though I can notice you saying or doing things I do not like, I need to learn to ignore it rather than join a mob attacking you.

Brian Doherty and I discuss Jennifer Burns' recent biography of Milton Friedman, titled The Last Conservative. We appreciate the effort she undertook to appreciate Friedman’s contributions in economics. Brian points out that she undersells his libertarianism.

substacks referenced above:

@

On Jonathan Haidt's Anxious Generation

@

The end of (online) history

@

Jonathan Haidt: Smartphones Rewired Childhood. Here’s How to Fix It.

@

"The Anxious Generation"

@

It’s Time To Free The Anxious Generation

@

National Nursing Home v. Finance Bros

@

Saturday Commentary and Review #159